Birthday Girl
by emmy313
Summary: Josh is thrown off guard when he remembers he's forgotten someone's birthday. CW: Grief


"Donna, any news?" Josh peeled off his damp jacket and ran a hand through his wet hair.  
She smirked. "It's raining."  
"Yeah, I got that." He poured himself a coffee. "What else?"  
"Senior staff at 8, then you're on the hill with Spencer, Tandy, and Brooks. Meeting at 1 in the mural room with the emergency managers from Tennessee."  
"Tennessee?"  
"Clean up from that flooding last month. All in here." She handed him a thick binder and topped off her coffee.  
"Any calls yet?"  
"Congressman Spencer. Congressman Nichols. Buckland from Labor. And Sam needs you at some point, I think."  
"Sam? What's he want?"  
"Ask him." She said.  
"What do I pay you for?"  
"I don't get paid enough to be Sam Seaborn's psychic."  
"Well, what about being mine?" Josh squinted and put his free hand to his head. "What am I thinking right now?"  
"That you need an umbrella."  
"Nope."  
"You wish you'd been an astronaut and-"  
"Nah."  
She grabbed a handful of mail from her desk as they walked towards his office, juggling their coffees and memos. "You're going to buy your lovely assistant a new car that isn't a piece of shit."  
"Keep dreaming." Josh fished his office key out of his pocket and unlocked the door.  
"But really, it's in the shop again and-"  
"Ouch, that'll be a long walk home tonight."  
"Josh!" She whined.  
He smiled at her as he dumped his armful of work onto his cluttered desk. "You're pretty and vulnerable and unassuming. I'm sure _someone_ will take pity and give you a ride." He handed her a folder. "Could you type these up? Oh, and call Nichols back-tell him to take a damn hike."  
"If it'll earn me a ride home."  
"It'll earn you a salary to get yourself a better car."  
She sighed. "Senior staff starts in 20. You need some breakfast?"  
"Not hungry, thanks." Josh shut the door before she could start nagging.

He sat down at his desk, took another swig of coffee, and looked up at his Mets calendar on the wall.

 _March 24.  
_ He slammed his mug down on his desk. "Shit!" he said to his empty office.

Her birthday crept up on him every year.  
Joanie, his sweet, precocious big sister, would have been turning 47 today.

He took a deep, shaky breath and leaned back in his chair. _Forty. Seven_. It felt impossible for her to be that old.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture her at 15, 17, 18. High school. Taller, more mature, shedding the awkwardness of junior high. He pictured her working at an ice cream shop after school. Maybe she would've given violin or piano lessons. Would she have gone through a wild phase with a shitty boyfriend for Josh to annoy?

Maybe, in her early 20s, she would have lived in a tiny apartment in a big city as she tried to get her music off the ground. Sixteen-year-old Josh-a shoestring with anxiety and a Jewfro-could come to visit. He would've sat on her couch, sipping on his first beer, while she prepared for auditions, nervously playing her violin over and over until her fingers were raw.

He tried to see her at 35, 40, _47_...A grown woman. Could she have achieved her conductor dreams? Married and had kids? Oh, he'd be such a cool uncle. Would Joanie have taken the time off work that he didn't, couldn't, wouldn't take when their dad got sick?

Donna pushed the door open. "So when you told me to tell Nichols to take a hike, were you serious or-"  
"Go away." It came out more aggressively than he'd intended. He couldn't quite breathe right. "I-I-I need...I need a minute."  
"You okay?"  
"Go!" Josh said. She shut the door.

He took another slow, shuddering breath.

It'd been almost 35 years since the fire and there was still a daily awareness, a whisper of what he'd lost. What could have been.

Last week at lunch with a group of Senators, they'd been seated near a family: a teen girl bickering with two squirmy, giggling little brothers. He was there to do business, but Josh couldn't stop glancing at their table. Years ago, he'd passed a playground and caught sight of a little girl, maybe 6 or 7, protectively leading her toddler brother by the hand. He had to look away.

The D.C. Youth orchestra had visited last spring. His very first thought: _Joanie would've loved that._ It wasn't a sad moment, but a quick, honest one as he smiled at the young musicians as he rushed about the White House.

Josh propped his head up in his hand and stared blankly at the wall. It wasn't possible to picture Joanie aging. She was frozen in time at 13.

The pictures in their childhood home never changed: Joan as a bare-bottomed, laughing two-year-old drinking from a garden hose, and as a nine-year-old prodigy, small but confident, cradling her violin. As a wide-eyed, protective big sister, holding infant Josh in her lap the day she took him to her kindergarten class for show-and-tell.

But, of course, their parents' photos of Josh changed: Rows and rows of school pictures, candid New England summers on the lake, his Bar Mitzvah. High school graduation, then college, then law school.

Little brother surpassing big sister. It was so hard and so _wrong_. People typically assumed he was an only child, but he'd never stopped being someone's baby brother.  
Josh scrubbed a hand over his face. _Snap out of it._ He thought. _Don't do this to yourself today. Don't go there. Don't dwell._

"Donna!" He called.

She pushed the door open again, more slowly this time. "Yeah?"

"Um…" he ran a hand through his hair. "Any...any notes I need for senior staff?"

"Not that I know of." She said. She didn't say that he never had notes before senior staff. "You, uh, said to call Nichols?"

"He and his bone headed, dead on arrival, greedy tax plan need to leave this administration the hell alone!"

Donna nodded. "Sure, I'll paraphrase that in the nicest way possible."

"Fine." Josh muttered. He swallowed, hard. "Dammit."

"What? Everyone knows Nichols is an idiot. We'll-"

"It's not about him." He said sharply. He took another breath. It'd been a long time since grief had knocked the wind out of him like this.

"Then _what_?" She said. "Are you okay?"

He knew she was thinking of last December: the tightness in his chest and shoulders for weeks, the sirens, the damn music. Then the two of them side-by-side in the ER on Christmas Eve as a doctor picked broken glass from his palm.

"I...I'm okay." He nodded and stood up. "Something just...caught me off guard is all."

"Can I ask-"

"I'm gonna be late for senior staff. Leo'll have my ass." He picked up a memo he hadn't read.  
"He'll be fine." Donna said. She was standing in front of the door. "Could you tell me what's got you so edgy? Please?"

He sighed and leaned against the door frame, facing her. He'd learned a long time ago that if he made eye contact, people wouldn't feel sorry for him. If he forced himself to look her in the eye, he was stronger than the fire and cancer and bullets and booze that had ripped his life apart time and time again since he was seven years old.

"My sister. Joanie." He said quietly. "Today would've been her birthday."

"Oh, Josh." She put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry." Her words were firm, genuine. Free of pity.  
He rubbed the back of his neck. "I-I just...I didn't think about it. I didn't remember until I saw the calendar and it...knocked me over." He licked his lips, then straightened up and buttoned his jacket. "Anyways, I've gotta go. Now you know." He turned to leave, nearly tripping over an intern in his rush.

"Hey Josh?" Donna called. He turned back around. "How old would she have been?"

"Forty-seven." He said. He smiled. "An old lady."

"Ancient!" Donna agreed.


End file.
